Tuesday, March 27, 2007

week 11: grids in bills at the NCGA

At the General Assembly, the documents I produce all have a simple grid structure, with four basic horizontal frames:
1) top of bill, includes the year of session, edition number, bill number, and history.
2) sponsor's name(s), separated by a horizontal line
3) committee referral (if any), separated by a horizontal line
4) text of bill, separated by a horizontal lines

All bills at the North Carolina General Assembly (of which we have produced over 2,500 this year) have the same identical structure, so the document is easily identifiable. Members, staff, and lobbyists all are used to the same structure, which was used in an identical manner when I got here 30 years ago.




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UPDATE March 28, 2007:
Wait a minute, here's the document I should have posted, since the instructor is on the SILS faculty! Notice that one of the grid segments (sponsors) expands in size to fit the contents:

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